The Scotland discussion from...Australian marries his Asian bf

[giggsy]

Surfcrest - as I have said before, I do not understand why you continue to try to be reasonable with people who are obsessive, who will argue about the thin end of a fart, and who will never accept any decision which goes against them.

Sounds like Scottish nationalists to me. :ymparty:

[scottish-guy]

Giggsy, if you could illustrate your statement with some examples of "Scottish nationalists" not accepting democratic decisions, your comment might hold water.

In my lifetime we have accepted the Heath, Thatcher (3 times), Major (twice), and now Cameron governments being inflicted on us despite Scottish voters overwhelmingly rejecting them at the ballot box. We have more giant pandas in Scotland (2) than we have Tory MPs (1).

In other countries (like Thailand!) there would be rioting in the streets if an unelected Government was foisted on the people. Therefore, I think "Scottish nationalists" have been perfect models of how to accept the democratic principle.

Whilst elsewhere in the world, Independence is most often achieved at the cost of bloodshed and human lives - if Scotland achieves Independence in 2014 no-one will have suffered so much as a nose-bleed.

Of course, maybe your comment was tongue-in-cheek - yet another Bernard Manning-esque "joke" - that racist comedian you are so fond of?

:ymparty: :ymparty: :ymparty:

[giggsy]

I see the odds are 1/7 for a no vote and 9/2 for a yes vote so carry on dreaming L-) . Funny thing is there is more English people that would vote yes then Scottish people, why not ask Salmond to include all the UK.

[scottish-guy]

Betting odds do not worry me.

Where there is a large market then the odds might be indicative of the feelings of the majority, but this does not appear to be the case.

Obviously we can not check how much Hills, Corals, et al have laid - but we can look at Betfair and see that only ┬г64K has been laid on the outcome of the referendum. ┬г64K in Betfair terms is nothing at all, a mere trifle - over ┬г500,000 was laid on todays 1.55 at Wolverhampton alone!! So, the market is small - in fact it's tiny - and nothing can reliably be inferred from it

So, by all means continue to feed your John Bull mentality with bookmakers odds on an event that has 10 months to run before a single vote is cast! Anything can happen in politics in 10 months. Right up to polling day in 2012 the bookmakers and the Opinion Polls told us that Labour would romp home in the Scottish General Election. Result? A Scottish National Party landslide.

But Giggsy, since you're so confident of the bookmaker's odds I'd be really, really impressed if you'd stick a few grand on it yourself and post your betting slip on SGT. When can we expect to see your betting slip posted? :))

Now, moving to your other point, and I'll try to keep it simple for you - think of Scottish Independence as being like a divorce. The person being divorced does not have a veto. Get it?

Therefore why should the English, Welsh, and Northern Irish have any say in the matter? Did you advocate the Russians having a vote on whether Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine ought to be "allowed" to leave the fold? There is absolutely no precedent for, and no logical sense in what you are suggesting, and it flies in the face of the accepted "rules" of International politics ever since Woodrow Wilson put forward the USA's principle of "self-determiniation" immediately after WW1. Also, please remember that Eton Dave has already conceded in writing that England, Wales, NIreland have no rights in the matter, that it is purely a decision for the Scottish people.

Moving on, I'd like to know what evidence you can cite to support your assertion that other constituent parts of the UK are desperate for Scotland to leave the UK. Maybe you spend too much time reading the racist and xenophobic Daily Mail (and actually I'd sooner put money on THAT than on the referendum result), but I await your polling evidence.

On the other hand I can cite a poll carried out last month for a UK financial services consumer website with just under 25,000 responses.
Of those, 57% of English respondents did NOT want Scotland to leave the UK, with the same sentiment expressed by 57% from Wales, and 53% from Northern Ireland. The Scottish section of the poll result (i.e. the people who actually have a VOTE) was 56% YES, 44% NO.

But at the end of the day it all boils down where people will put their X on polling day - and nobody can reliably predict which way that will go with 10 months left and a European Election coming up in April(?) which will surely see England shift significantly to the Right with UKIP poised to take perhaps 20% of the vote and thus greatly increase the prospect of yet another Tory led UK Govt in 2015.

Now I'm quite happy to continue answering your questions and rebutting your assertions but I'd suggest that a topic about somebody's BF is not really the place to do it. There was previously a thread on Scottish Independence and the moderating team might want to consider moving the last 4 exchanges there :-?